


One Obvious Truth

by politics_and_prose



Series: All That Heaven Will Allow [1]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, mentions of past Jack/Katherine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 06:01:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16341146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/politics_and_prose/pseuds/politics_and_prose
Summary: Sarah decides to set Katherine up on a blind date.  Jack decides the same for Davey.  Reluctantly, the two agree.





	One Obvious Truth

“Let me set you up on a blind date.”

“No,” Katherine said without looking up from her newspaper.

“Why not? It could be fun!” 

“Or it could be a disaster. Do you remember when Les tried to set me up because he said I got boring? It was with a fifteen year old!”

“You probably should have expected my little brother to think fifteen was old enough to date you. He’s thirteen; I don’t think he has any concept of an age difference yet.”

“He tried real hard though. It was actually really cute. Or would have been if the kid wasn’t some miniature version of Race. And if the kid had looked me in the eyes instead of …”

Sarah chuckled and sat down at the table beside her friend and roommate. After a string of fights with her mother, Sarah had decided it was time for her to move out and find her own way. The problem was, she didn’t make enough money for her own place and she wasn’t close enough with any of the other girls at work to try to go in on an apartment with them.

That’s when Katherine Plumber stepped in and offered the spare room in her apartment. She’d planned on using it as a home office but Sarah obviously needed it more. They’d grown to be close friends through Katherine’s friendship with Davey, something that the younger boy hated some of the time and loved the rest.

“Look,” Sarah said, redirecting the conversation to a place where she could control it, “he’s a really great guy and I think you two would get along really well. And if you don’t, it’s just one night. One dinner. Maybe one dance. Maybe one kiss. Just give him a chance.”

“What’s his name?” Katherine asked with a sigh.

“No way am I telling you that!” Sarah laughed, tapping the table and standing up. “I know what you do for a living. There’s no way you wouldn’t find him.”

“So you want me to just blindly let you set me up with some guy I know nothing about?”

Sarah grinned and placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “That’s why they call it a blind date, Kath.”

\--

“You need a girl.” 

David looked up from his newspaper and rolled his eyes at Jack. It was becoming a weekly ritual for his best friend or his sister to badger him about finding someone to spend time with. And it wasn’t like they wanted him to find a lady friend for his own good. They claimed he was boring and that a girl would help remind him of who he was back in ’99 when the strike was on and he was fearless. 

Neither of them seemed to grasp exactly how terrified he’d been during the strike, rally organizer or not.

“I don’t need a girl,” he answered before turning back to the paper. “You see in here that Spot saved somebody down at the docks? Betcha Race tries to take credit for it somehow." 

“That boy’s gonna make a good politician some day,” Jack agreed with a shake of his head. “If Spot don’t kill’em first.”

“Forget Spot, Finch is gonna kill ‘em,” Davey answered. “Word has it Race boosted some cash from Finch’s secret stash and blew it at Sheepshead. Elmer asked me if I knew what a kook was. I’m pretty sure he meant coup and that some of your former newsboys are gonna start a riot.” 

“They’s your newsboys too.” There was a long silence that allowed David to go back to his paper. He had just started an article on Roosevelt when: “Hey! No fair changin’ the subject. We was talkin’ about you gettin’ a girl.”

“No, _you_ were talking about that. I was reading the paper before I got back to studying.”

“A date ain’t gonna kill ya, Davey. Meet a nice girl, get some food, chat ‘er ear off about how you’se gonna be a teacher one day. Can’t think’a’a better night.” Davey didn’t look at him but arched an eyebrow. “Okay,” Jack amended with a grin. “I can think’a’a better night for _me_ but not for you. C’mon. Just one date then I’ll leave ya alone about it.”

“For six months,” Davey countered after a long pause. “If I agree to go on _one date_ with this mystery girl, then you leave me alone about dating for six months.”

Jack frowned and crossed his arms. “No way. Not unless I get some kinda … ya gotta actually _tryta_ have fun or it don’t count and I get’ta try an’ set ya’ up again.”

Davey considered the offer silently for a moment. He didn’t think he needed someone romantically in his life. He was busy and he had good friends. He went out with Jack and sometimes Katherine, his sister, their friends; he wasn’t some kind of homebody with no life.

But he supposed a night out where he could meet someone new, learn something about them, forget about school for a while, couldn’t be a bad thing.

With a sigh, Davey stood and spit in his hand, extending it to Jack. “Deal.”

\--

When Saturday night rolled around, Katherine was nervous. It had been a long time since her last date and she feared she would be woefully out of practice. There had been men since Jack but none that had held her fancy for more than a couple of months at a time.

Jack and Sarah both told her she was too picky; she preferred to think that she was just waiting for the right person.

Sarah had told her the time and place to meet her Mystery Man, as she’d dubbed him, and Katherine couldn’t help but get there early to stake him out. She’d held out some hope that he would be there before her – she considered punctuality to be quite an attractive trait – but the table she’d been led to was empty.

The only problem with arriving fifteen minutes before your date was the assumption of being stood up when your partner wasn’t there at the same time.

“That’s a strike against you, MM,” she murmured to herself as she took a sip of her water.

\--

David was not good at dating. He didn’t really do it. At all. Ever. Sure, he’d been out with one of Sarah’s friends before, but it had been a disaster. She didn’t stop talking about herself or her cat, called him Danny all night and asked about marriage before dessert. And then there’d been the girl who didn’t talk at all, instead just staring at him for an hour.

Mush had helped him meet a girl once and she was great. Cheerful and funny and very kind. She moved before they got to the third date.

All of that led to Davey pacing anxiously outside of the restaurant that Jack had told him to be at. He was five minutes earlier than Jack’s designated time, but he didn’t think he could bring himself to go inside and wait. She might not show up. Jack may have told her about him and she could have decided that he sounded boring and not worth her time.

“Excuse me, young man?”

Davey looked up to see a man in a black suit watching him a little nervously.

“Yes?” he asked, his ears turning pink when it came out in a squeak. “Sorry. Excuse me. Yes?”

“Are you planning on coming in?”

Davey considered saying no and running back home, tail between his legs, vowing to find a way to tune Jack out until his pal got tired of trying to set him up. But his conversation with his best friend just before he left to meet his date changed his mind and made him stand a little straighter.

_“You gotta stop pacin’ like that, Davey. You’s gonna wear a hole in the rug. Just …” He walked up to David and straightened his tie, tugging at his vest and then his jacket. “Just be you. Be the fella that tracked me down at Medda’s and kicked my ass back ta’ the fight. She’s gonna like ya’. An’ if she don’t, that’s on her. Cuz you’s a catch.”_

_“Jack …”_

_“Aw, don’t – stop with the mushy face. Get the hell outa here.”_  

“Yes.”

Davey stepped into the restaurant, his eyes scanning the dim light for a woman alone in a purple dress. He didn’t know how people were expected to see each other in this place, but he figured it was setting the mood.

When he mentioned to the host who he was looking for, the man smiled and led him to a table towards the back. He didn’t recognize any of the faces there and he absently thought that would be good just in case his date wasn’t interested, in case she took one look at him and –

 “Your table, sir.”

He nodded to the man, took a deep, calming breath and stepped around from behind the woman, a nervous smile on his face. “Good evening. I’m –“

 --

“Davey?” Katherine asked as she stood. “What are you doing here?”

 “I’m …” His eyes wandered over her and she couldn’t help but smooth out some non-existent wrinkles on her dress. “Meeting you.”

Katherine barked out a surprised laugh before covering her face. “I’m sorry,” she said, hoping she could stop his face from falling. “I just … didn’t expect you to be the one Sarah … but, of course,” she continued in the same breath, her eyes rolling, “of course she’s going to set me up with her brother. How did she get you here?”

“She didn’t,” he said as he shook his head, holding his hand out in a gesture for her to sit again. Once she returned to her seat, he sat as well. “Jack did.”

“Jack?” Katherine asked, confused. “So they were working together?”

Chuckling, Davey shook his head, half in disbelief. “They had to have been. There’s no way they weren’t. I mean, there’s no way they could’ve gotten us here at the same time, with you wearing exactly what Jack said you would be, if they weren’t in on it together.” He chuckled again. “Wow.”

When the waitress arrived, she asked if Davey wanted a drink. Blinking, he looked up to Katherine. “It’s up to you,” he answered. “We can …” He looked towards the door. “We can call this off and chalk it up to my sister and best friend thinking they’re clever. Or playing a joke on us.”

Katherine considered for a brief second before lifting a shoulder in a shrug, a small smile on her face. “What could it hurt?”

Davey smiled too, relaxing into his seat, before he asked for a glass of water and requested the menu.

Neither noticed a woman with dark hair in a purple dress sitting alone three tables away, nor a confident blonde man in a three piece suit on the other side of the room, both waiting for someone who wouldn’t be showing up.

**Author's Note:**

> To be perfectly honest, this is not how I intended to end the story. But, as I was writing it, I realized how obvious it was that they would be meeting each other, so I needed a twist.
> 
> I also started this one before my multi-chapter Pulitzer fic. Funny how writing turns out sometimes.
> 
> Anyway - any comments you have would be awesome and greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!


End file.
